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I would like to give one very enthusiastic high five to the person who first figured out that you could shred certain vegetables into long skinny “noodles” and serve them as a pasta substitute. One cup of cooked spaghetti noodles is about 200 calories. One cup of cooked zucchini – depending on how you make it – can weigh in at about 60 calories. That’s 70% less calories! Ho-ly cow, my friend. My waistline is forever in your debt!

Using turkey sausage instead of a pork-based sausage also helps save on the fat and calorie content of this dish. There is no butter whatsoever and only 3-4 Tbsp. of olive oil went into sautéing the zucchini pasta.

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground Italian Turkey Sausage (hot or mild, your preference)

2 carrots

2 stalks of celery

1 small onion (about 1 c chopped)

½ c. white wine

1 Tbsp. minced garlic

1 large can (28 oz.) of chopped tomatoes with puree

Salt and pepper (for seasoning)

2 Tbsp. Italian herbs (any dried Italian herbs that you’ve got on hand – basil, oregano, rosemary, etc. I used the one that I have from the grocery store which is an “Italian herb blend”.

Heat a sauté pan over medium high heat and cook the sausage until almost completely cooked through. Drain any excess fat (if necessary) and set aside in a bowl.

If you have a food processor, roughly chop the carrots, celery, and onion into large chunks. Add to the food processor and use the “chop” function for about 10 seconds, or until everything has been cut down into tiny bits (the equivalent of a “fine dice”). If you do not have a food processor, dice the carrots, celery, and onion into small, small, pieces. Think “minced”.

In the same sauté pan that you prepared the sausage, reduce the heat to medium. Add the onion, carrots, and celery. Season with salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat until they begin to soften (about 5 minutes).

Add the 1/2 c. of white wine to the pan. Quickly, begin to scrape the bottom of the pan, loosening any of the brown bits that have begun for form on the bottom. (This process of adding a bit of liquid to a hot pan and scraping the brown bits from the bottom is called “deglazing the pan”. The brown bits are where much of the tasty flavor comes from and so it’s important to scrape them from the bottom of the pan so they can be incorporated into the dish!)

Add the garlic to the pan and stir to incorporate. After about 30 seconds, add the cooked Italian sausage back to the pan and immediately add the can of crushed tomatoes and the Italian herbs to the pan as well. Stir everything and reduce the heat so that you being the sauce to a very slow simmer.

There’s a great meat purveyor at our local farmer’s market that we’ve been buying our meat from for the past few weeks. We’ve bought all kinds of goodies from them so far like beef cheek, rabbit, and lamb lollipops. This week we bought some of their spicy Italian turkey sausage. The first thing that pops into my brain when I think “sausage” is always sausage and peppers! (Blame it on the Italian genes.) Making sausage and peppers hoagies or sausage and peppers pasta would be a little on the carb-heavy side. Therefore, I decided that it would be both fun and healthy to stuff some zucchini!

2. After 2 or 3 minutes, add the diced onion to the pan along with the sausage. Cook until the onion is soft and the sausage has begun to brown and is cooked most of the way through. The sausage will finish cooking in the oven. (That being said – feel free to cook it all the way through in the sauté pan if you are more comfortable with that.)

3. Place the cooked sausage and onion mixture in a bowl. Stir in the diced red and green bell pepper and set aside. Season this mixture with salt and pepper. Add 1/2 tsp. or so of crushed red pepper, if desired.

4. Cut the zucchini in half, lengthwise. Using a small spoon or melon baller, remove the meat from the middle of each zucchini, leave a border of around 1/2 inch or so. Make sure not to dig the core too deeply, as you don’t want a hole in the bottom of your zucchini boat! Season each zucchini boat with some salt and pepper (you can be a little generous with the salt, as the zucchini will release a lot of water as it steams in the oven and you will lose some of the salt to the released water.)

5. Spoon the sausage/onion/peppers mixture into each zucchini boat, filling each zucchini as much as possible. In a 9×13 baking dish (or an 8×8 if you have it, as the zucchini will most likely fit nicely in this smaller pan) add just enough water to barely cover the bottom of the pan. (Note: if you have some on hand, you can also substitute chicken broth for the water.)

It’s summertime and farmer’s markets are popping up everywhere. I love farmer’s markets because they’re great exposure to veggies and other produce you might not normally see in the grocery store (I’m talking to you, weird-looking squash.). Enter: pickling cucumbers. When I first saw them, I naively thought “Aww, look – little baby cucumbers! How adorable!” Then I saw the sign, “Pickling Cucumbers: $2.oo/lb.” and I knew what had to be done: homemade pickle experiment.

I started scouring the internet for articles on how to make pickles at home and let me tell you – there are a TON of different recipes out there. However, the basic formula is the same: pickling liquid + herbs and spices + cucumbers. So, I grabbed all the spices in my arsenal and started sniffing around, deciding which ones I would want to flavor my pickles with. Most folks seem to be partial towards one particular pickle flavor. I’m a dill pickle kinda girl, myself. So I decided to go with some of the basics: black peppercorn, coriander, garlic, and dill. I also decided to add a pinch of fennel seed and crushed red pepper because… well because why not, I suppose? This is just my first pickle experiment, after all. Eventually I’ll figure out what works for my palette and what doesn’t.

Below is the recipe I used (but feel free to add or subtract herbs and spices, as you see fit). Happy pickling!

Quick Dill Pickles, Photo Credit: Accounting for Taste

Ingredients

6-8 Kirby cucumbers

3 c. water

3 c. distilled white vinegar

2 Tbsp. kosher salt

2/3 c. sugar

2 tsp. black peppercorns, divided

2 tsp. coriander seed, divided

1 tsp. fennel seed, divided

1 tsp. onion flakes, divided

1 tsp. red pepper flake, divided (optional)

4 Tbsp. fresh dill, divided (I actually just cut a small handful of dill sprigs from my potted dill plant. However, if I had chopped it up it probably would have been about 4 Tbsp.)

4 garlic cloves, cut in half lengthwise

2 large mason jars

Directions

Quick Dill Pickles, Photo Credit: Accounting for Taste

1. Rinse off your cucumbers and set aside to dry.

Quick Dill Pickles, Photo Credit: Accounting for Taste

2. Add water, vinegar, salt, and sugar to a pan and bring to a boil. Then, let simmer for 15 minutes. This is your “pickling brine”.

4. Slice the ends off of each cucumber. Then slice each cucumber in half, lengthwise. Divide the sliced cucumbers equally between the two jars.

Quick Dill Pickles, Photo Credit: Accounting for Taste

5. Pour the pickling brine into each jar, making sure there is enough liquid to cover the cucumbers. Wait a minute or two and then close the jar lids. Allow the jars to sit and cool down to room temperature before putting the jars in the refrigerator.

Quick Dill Pickles, Photo Credit: Accounting for Taste

6. Refrigerate for about 24 hours before eating. This will give the flavors a chance to really meld. The pickles should keep for about a month. That being said, if anything starts to taste off or “funky” about them, it’s probably a good idea to just go ahead and get rid of them.

I think I mentioned a few posts ago that I’ve been on a Mediterranean kick lately. I love all the salty flavors in this dish: kalamata olives, artichoke hearts, and feta cheese. It’s light, it’s fresh, and it’s a quick meal to throw together any night of the week. Health perk: it’s just chicken and veggies! No rice, pasta, or potatoes, so it’s calorie-friendly. There’s not even any butter in the dish – it’s all flavor and no guilt! Here’s how to make it:

Salmon is one of the many foods I hated as a kid. In fact, I really didn’t care for it at all up until about a year ago. I guess the old tastebuds are a-changin’ because now I love it. I eat it every week!

I actually did some quick research on “changing tastebuds” just to be certain that there was some validity to the notion that our tastes change from childhood to adulthood. First, I learned that everyone is born with a different number of tastebuds, ranging anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000. The more tastebuds you have the more sensitive your are to flavors. However, as we age, our tastebuds tend to dull and diminish in number. Hence, our ability to enjoy things we perhaps were grossed out by as a kid. (Not to mention that our palettes generally grow and mature as we grow and mature.)

For this dish, I pan-seared some salmon and served it over a bed of sautéed spinach, mushrooms, and leeks. If you are not familiar with leeks, they’re a member of the onion and garlic family. You can use them in place of yellow onions in recipes and I really enjoy their mild flavor, which I usually sweeten with a little white wine when sautéing them. I LOVE to cook with them. And you will LOVE this guilt-free meal!

Pan-Seared Salmon with Sautéed Spinach, Mushrooms, and Leeks

Ingredients:

1 lb. filet of salmon

4 c. raw spinach

2 leeks

8 to 12 oz. mushrooms (any kind you like)

3-4 sprigs of thyme

1/2 c. white wine, divided

salt and pepper (to taste)

olive oil (for sautéing)

Directions:

1. Break down the leeks in order to cook them. Only the white and light green parts of a leek are edible. Therefore, cut the leek just below the dark green of the leaves. Slice the leek in half (vertically) and then chop each half of the leek into thin slivers, discarding the root of the leek.

2. Fill a large bowl at least halfway with cold water. Add the chopped leeks to a colander and place the colander into the bowl of water. Stir the leeks around a bit and allow them to sit for at least 5 minutes. This will rinse the leeks and help remove any dirt from them.

4. Once at least 5 minutes have passed, removed the colander with the leeks from the bowl of water and allow them to drain for a few minutes while you continue your dinner prep.

5. Remove the skin from your salmon filet, if necessary. Season generously with salt and pepper.

6. Heat a medium sauté pan on medium-high heat. Add 3-4 Tbsp. of olive oil. Sauté the leeks until soft and opaque. Once most of the water evaporates from the leeks, add 1/4 c. of white wine and allow to cook for 2-3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and set aside in a bowl.

7. In the same sauté pan that you prepared the leeks, add another 3-4 Tbsp. of olive oil and sauté your mushrooms until golden brown. When the mushrooms are almost done cooking, add 1/4 c. of white wine and allow to cook for 2-3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and set aside in the bowl with the leeks.

8. Just before the mushrooms are finished cooking, heat a large sauté pan over high heat. Add 3-4 Tbsp. of olive oil and once your pan is good and hot, add the salmon. After about 2 minutes, reduce the heat to medium. While the first side is browning, season the other side with salt and pepper. After another minute or two, flip your salmon over. (It’s important to begin cooking the salmon in a very hot pan so that you get a nice sear on the fish. However, after the first two minutes or so you reduce the heat from high to medium and leave it on medium for the remainder of the cooking process, so as not to burn the fish.)

9. Once you have flipped the salmon over, add 2 Tbsp. of butter and the 3-4 sprigs of thyme. Be careful – thyme has a tendency to spit and sputter hot oil when you add it to the pan. Give it a few seconds to calm down a bit before approaching the pan. Tip the pan at an angle towards you, so that all of the oil and butter forms a small pool, and spoon this oil/butter mixture over the fish as it cooks. Do this once or twice during the span of the fish cooking. While not necessary, it makes your fish that much more delicious.

10. Removed the cooked salmon and allow it to rest for 3-4 minutes before cutting into it. While the fish is resting, in the medium sauté pan that you used for the mushrooms and leeks, add 2-3 Tbsp. of oil and cook the 4 c. of spinach over medium-low heat. Once the spinach is almost ready, season with salt and pepper and add the cooked mushrooms and leeks back into the pan with the spinach so that they can reheat.

11. Once the leek, mushroom, and spinach mixture is hot, spoon a bed of it onto each plate. Cut your salmon filet into two pieces and place each piece on top of the bed of the spinach. Serve immediately.

I don’t know why I never mentioned this sooner. I’ve had a Pinterest account for Accounting for Taste for about as long as I’ve had this blog! Pinterest is my lifeblood. It’s where I keep every recipe I ever hope to test out. Every successful recipe I’ve ever made and shared with my WordPress family. Are you a Pinterest devotee, like myself? Follow us and you’ll never miss a recipe!